Discover the San Francisco Police Code

The laws of San Francisco, for non-lawyers.

San Francisco Decoded provides the San Francisco Police Code on one friendly website. Inline
definitions, cross-references, bulk downloads, a modern API, and all of the niceties
of modern website design. It’s like the expensive software lawyers use, but free and
wonderful.

This is a public beta test of San Francisco Decoded, which is to say that everything
is under development. Things are funny looking, broken, and generally unreliable
right now.

Inline Definitions

Throughout the San Francisco Police Code, very specific legal definitions are
provided for terminology both specialized and mundane. If you don’t know which
words have special definitions, and what those definitions are, then you can’t
understand what a law really means. San Francisco Decoded solves this
problem neatly, by identifying every definition in the San Francisco Police Code and
providing a pop-up definition every time that a defined word appears.

Bulk Downloads

San Francisco Decoded isn’t just a pretty website—you can take the laws with
you, too. On our downloads page you can get copies
of all of the laws of San Francisco in any format that you like, to do
whatever you like with. They’re available in formats meant for you to read
and in formats meant for software to read, too. If you’re a software developer,
you’ll love our API!

Stay Updated

This is not an official copy of the Municipal Codes of San Francisco and
should not be relied upon for legal or other official purposes. Please refer
to the Official Codes provided by American Legal Publishing for the verified
and official codes. You may not modify these codes and then represent them as
the original or official codes of the City and County of San Francisco. The
code can only be officially changed through the legislative process and
willfully misrepresenting modified code as the official code of the City and
County of San Francisco is strictly prohibited.

All user-contributed content is owned by its authors. The laws are owned by the
people and, consequently, are not governed by copyright—so do whatever you want
with them. This website does not constitute legal advice. Only a lawyer can
provide legal advice. While every effort is made to keep all information
up-to-date and accurate, no guarantee is made as to its accuracy.